Magnolia grandiflora The Laurel Tree of Carolina Publication of the Southern Garden Catesby’s NaturalM History, 1743 agnoliaHistory Society Vol. XXX No. 3 Summer-Fall 2017 A Practical Landscape: Martha Berry, Robert Cridland, and the Gardens at Oak Hill

By Timothy David Brown, Athens, Georgia

“I pray that I may leave the world more beautiful than I found it.” – Martha McChesney Berry

Encompassing more than 25,000 acres, Berry College is consistently ranked among the most beautiful campuses in the world. Perched in the Northwest Georgia foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, the institution, founded in 1902 to help poor children, grew to national stature during the 1920s with the support of affluent benefactors such as Henry Ford. It thus resulted into one of America’s most extraordinary Gothic Revival campuses. Today, every part of Berry College bears the signature of its founder, Martha McChesney Berry, whose resolve and strength of character enabled achievements unparalleled among her peers. Martha Berry’s love of beauty was instilled by her Crystal by Linsenbigler. Photo father, Thomas Berry, who understood the importance State Champion Japanese Maple overlooks Oak Hill's of aesthetics in a well-rounded education: he taught his historic Bridal Walk. children to appreciate the natural world around them and to see possibility in all things. Born six months after the Martha Berry also met Robert B. Cridland, a Civil War’s end, the first twelve years of Martha Berry’s life Philadelphian landscape architect who had achieved were spent during a time when Reconstruction reshaped success with Practical Landscape Gardening, an the world around her. The South had been devastated, (continued on page 3) but the Berrys thrived; in 1867 the growing family moved to Rome, Georgia, where in 1871 they purchased Oak Inside this Issue Hill—a sizeable farm overlooking the Oostanaula River. Propelled by intense compassion to help the poor, Pg. 5 David Williston: The First Negro Landscape Martha Berry had become one of the most respected Architect women in the world during the 1920s. A visit from Pg. 8 John Lee Pratt's Theodore Roosevelt in 1910 had garnered national attention, and the Berry Schools captured the imagination Pg. 10 Book Review: The Rose Rustlers of Northern aristocrats. Early introductions among Pg. 10 SGHS State Ambassadors Program the country’s elite resulted in deep friendships with people such as Henry & Clara Ford, Emily Vanderbilt Pg. 11 SGHS Benefactors, Patrons, Sustainers, and Hammond, Kate Macy Ladd, and Corinne Roosevelt Donors Robinson, Theodore’s younger sister. CALENDAR February 20, 2018. Cherokee Garden Library Staci L. Catron, Cherokee Garden Library Director, Lecture and Book Launch, Grave Landscapes: The and Mary Ann Eaddy, historic preservationist Nineteenth-Century Rural Cemetery Movement. will discuss their new University of Georgia Author and preservationist Erica Danylchak will Press book. More information and tickets: www. discuss her new University of South Carolina atlantahistorycenter.com/lectures Press book co-authored with the late James R. Cothran. More information and tickets: www. May 9, 2018. SGHS State Ambassadors Event for atlantahistorycenter.com/lectures Georgia and Florida members. See article below.

April 13-15, 2018. SGHS 36th Annual Meeting June 17-22, 2018. 22nd Annual Historic in Jacksonville, FL. Sites include The Cummer Landscape Institute: “Preserving Jefferson’s Museum and Gardens, Jacksonville’s Historic Gardens and Landscapes.” This one-week course Parks, Glen Saint Mary Nurseries, and Historic uses Monticello’s gardens and landscapes and the St. Augustine. The headquarters hotel for guests, as outdoor classrooms to study programs, and tour departures will be the historic landscape preservation. Lectures, workshops, DoubleTree by Hilton, 1201 Riverplace Blvd., field trips, and practical working experiences provide Jacksonville, FL 32207, (904) 398-8800. Group an introduction to the fields of landscape history, rate is $123 per night plus tax. To qualify, identify garden restoration, and historical horticulture. Visit: that you are with the Southern Garden History www.monticello.org/hli Society. Cutoff date for hotel registrations is March September 21-22, 2018. 12th Annual Heritage 13, 2018. More information will appear at www. Harvest Festival at Monticello. Celebrate the southerngardenhistory.org revolutionary legacy of Thomas Jefferson with April 21-28, 2018. Historic Garden Week in workshops, lectures, and tomato tastings and more. Virginia. More than 250 of Virginia’s most beautiful Featured speakers include Peter Hatch, Michael gardens, homes, and historic landmarks take part in Twitty, Ira Wallace, and many more. Visit: www. the celebration of Historic Garden Week, described heritageharvestfestival.com as “America’s Largest Open House.” This tour, October 19-20, 2018. 30th Annual Southern organized by the Garden Club of Virginia since Garden Symposium and Workshops: “The 1927, supports restoration projects statewide. Visit: Changing Nature of Gardening,” in St. Francisville, vagardenweek.org Louisiana. Featured speakers include celebrated April 14-16, 2018. Colonial Williamsburg’s authors Andrea Wulf, Rick Darke, and Doug 72nd Annual Garden Symposium: “Ordinary to Tallamy. More information will be available at: Extraordinary, Creating Landscape Designs that www.southerngardensymposium.com Reflect Beauty and Awe,”Learn how to create harmonious gardens that sing with creativity, as well as those that reflect personal expression and reverence for design fundamentals. Guest speakers Join your Southern Garden will discuss how to integrate existing elements, History friends! effectively combine plants and hardscape materials, and create features of distinctive landscape styles. Social media enthusiasts can now follow More information will be available at www.history. SGHS on Instagram at: org email: [email protected]; (800) 603-0948 https://www.instagram.com/southerngardenhistory/ and search for April 25, 2018. Cherokee Garden Library #southerngardenhistory Lecture, Book and Exhibition Launch, Seeking on Facebook and Instagram. Eden: A Collection of Georgia’s Historic Gardens.

2 Magnolia • Summer-Fall 2017 Vol. XXX, No. 3 A Practical Landscape:……(continued from page 1) unexpectedly popular book that had undergone several never been plumbed or electrified, was in great need of reprints by the mid-1920s. Cridland’s straightforward modernization. Recognizing the home’s potential to approach appealed to Martha Berry, who enlisted him to accommodate Berry College’s affluent visitors, Kate Macy beautify her burgeoning campus with new pathways and Ladd presented a sizeable donation to transform Oak plantings. In 1923, Cridland designed the gardens for the Hill—the house, the outbuildings, and the landscape— “House o’ Dreams,” a Craftsman retreat built at the top from a nineteenth-century farm into a fashionable 1920s of Lavender Mountain in honor of the schools’ twentieth estate. anniversary. An intimate garden, the House o’ Dreams Never one to hesitate, Martha Berry plunged into the incorporates almost every principle of Cridland’s text, project with full force, and in 1928 work began on the and the design would prove a fitting prelude to a more house and grounds almost simultaneously. Coolidge & ambitious project: The gardens of Oak Hill. Carlson Architects of Boston was enlisted to redesign the Martha Berry had come into possession of Oak house and Robert Cridland was asked to submit plans to Hill upon the passing of her mother, Frances Rhea transform the grounds. Berry, in 1927. The Greek Revival house, which had Cridland’s bold new design for the Oak Hill estate was implemented in stages, beginning with the gardens and paths surrounding the main house. He created four separate gardens, each unique—a formal garden, a goldfish garden, a sundial garden, and a hillside garden. Three summer houses provided shady respite for visitors, and walkways were laid with colorful native stone. Ponds, fountains and classical sculpture provided interest, and the entire scheme was unified by strict, geometric axes that are softened by exuberant plantings. Berry College Memorial LibraryBerry Archives. College Memorial Complementing the main gardens’ Cridland's original plan for Oak Hill's formal garden included a staggering number of plantings. geometry, Cridland designed a more rustic hillside garden on the ridge behind the house. Two winding paths on the near-vertical slope celebrate natural contours and are punctuated with flowering bulbs, a decorative water feature, and seats created from boulders found on site. Oak Hill’s entrance was relocated to the north—the gates were positioned directly across the highway from the Berry Schools’ entrance, and Cridland carved a new, winding driveway so that visitors passed through a natural landscape as they approached the house. The entry drive crossed a new bridge of native stone, and sugar maples and dogwood trees were planted in abundance. Communication between Martha Berry and Robert Cridland

Berry College Memorial LibraryBerry Archives. College Memorial was sometimes contentious—Martha Cridland's rendering for Berry's House o' Dreams is drawn in pencil on canvas. (continued on page 4) Vol. XXX, No. 3 Magnolia • Summer-Fall 2017 3 A Practical Landscape:……(continued from page 3) Berry did not mince words when displeased. In a letter to A box filled with old rolls of paper turned out to Cridland dated April 11, 1928, she writes, “Making over contain dozens of original blueprints and landscape plans my old home has been such a perfect failure that I am from the 1920s—the majority of which were signed hoping that I shall not be so disappointed in the landscape by Robert Cridland himself. In addition to numbered work.” Questioning the walkways, which she calls plans, architectural renderings were also present, some “hideous,” she says she is “greatly disappointed in what has hand-colored on canvas, and all, presumably, drawn been done so far.” She lets Cridland know she considers by Cridland. More than 75% of Oak Hill’s cultivated the work substandard, adding, “I think you must have left landscape—including all of the gardens surrounding some of the work to others in your office.” the house—was documented in that box. Suddenly, Robert Cridland’s responses are always patient, the 1930s landscape emerged: the plans show precisely however, and as time passed he must have grown how the gardens were designed to appear during Martha accustomed to Martha Berry’s exacting standards. After Berry’s lifetime. The complexity is sometimes daunting, visiting Europe in 1930, she enlisted Cridland to design however—for example, the modestly sized rose garden the most glorious garden of all—the Sunken Garden, contains 292 separate plants. Indeed, every inch of the which occupies a natural valley and is executed in an landscape was given a new purpose. emphatic Italian style. Planted with irises and daylilies, Equally pivotal to restoration efforts has been Practical the Sunken Garden was ornamented with Japanese cherry Landscape Gardening, Cridland’s own book, a veritable trees, a gift to Martha Berry from Emperor Hirohito. Rosetta Stone when interpreting the hieroglyphics of Throughout the 1930s, Cridland submitted plans for the landscape. While the garden plans state what to do, Berry College as well as for Oak Hill, eventually sculpting Practical Landscape Gardening explains why and how to the entire estate with ornamental ponds and a woodland do it – and provides a window into Cridland’s mindset as trail system. he designed Oak Hill. Nothing, we learn, is accidental. “Every tree and shrub, every plant and plantation, REVIVAL should bear a definite relation, one to the other, in the Like every garden, the condition of the grounds at general scheme,” he writes. He prefers straight walkways, Oak Hill has been proportionate to the energy put forth explaining that “straight lines always give more character in maintenance. Through the years, scores of photographs than curved ones,” and elliptical driveways are better attest to Berry College’s reverence for Oak Hill, and while than circular because they provide a “flat side next to the periods of overgrowth reigned at various times, they are house so that a waiting vehicle will be standing in the balanced by moments of meticulous precision. Twenty- proper position.” Practical Landscape Gardening sheds first-century restoration efforts began ten years ago with a light on hundreds of details relating to Oak Hill, from grant from the Garden Club of Georgia, which repaired Cridland’s opinion of concrete walks—they are “really the south wall of the Sunken Garden. Since 2012, the monotonous”—to the proper color of gravel walks—red, GCG has awarded three additional Historic Garden and rather than gray—and his strong words about the greatest Landscape Grants to bring the Hillside Garden, catfish scourge of all: “weeds are always a menace and…should be pond, and stone stairways back to their former glory. With continually fought against.” assistance from the GCG, the restoration of the Hillside Martha Berry and Robert Cridland enjoyed a Garden is almost complete. long, productive friendship and together created an extraordinary work of art—today, the grounds of Berry College and Oak Hill are indeed among the most beautiful on earth. Enthusiasm from the local Rome Federated Garden Clubs, support from the GCG and the discovery of rare, original documents has provided a framework to recreate a true representation of Robert Cridland’s designs and, in recent years, the gardens have begun to reemerge. An exciting project, the restoration of Oak Hill’s gardens is ongoing, improving continuously as we learn the nuances and needs of the landscape. We hope Martha Berry would be gratified to know that she did, indeed, leave the world more beautiful than she found it and created a lasting legacy for future generations. Photo by Tim Brown Tim by Photo Tulips abound during early spring throughout Berry College's campus, For more information about Oak Hill & The Martha Berry including the gardens of Oak Hill. Museum, visit www.berry.edu/oakhill or call 706-368-6789.

4 Magnolia • Summer-Fall 2017 Vol. XXX, No. 3 David Williston: First Negro Landscape Architect By Dreck Spurlock Wilson, ASLA, NOMA, , DC Normal Institute after John Gregory, a business partner of Samuel Williston who probably owed him a debt. Gregory David Augustus Williston Normal Institute can lay claim to having schooled the (1868-1962) acquired the de- race’s first landscape architect and the race’s first degreed scriptor “First Negro Landscape architect, Wilmington’s-own Robert Taylor (1868-1942), Architect” after opening his an 1890 graduate of the Massachusetts Institute Technol- office in 1923 on the 1st floor ogy. What are the odds? of his LeDroit Park townhouse Ezra Cornell’s reply to a letter received from a colored downslope from Howard Uni- father “send him over if he is smart and can make his mark H.U. Moorland-Spingarn H.U. Moorland-Spingarn Center Research versity’s hilltop campus in the David Williston in the world” opened nation’s capital.1 Williston smartly a pipeline from the located his office in the midst of the largest cadre of Howard Normal Negro architects in the nation within eye-sight of How- School to Cornell ard’s Founders Library. “Founders” reverentially refers to University.2 Cornell trustees of the First Congregational Church who founded in upstate, farm Howard in 1867; the same denomination that schooled strewn New York David back in the Tar Heel State. was one of the first The sylvan subdivision of LeDroit Park was familiar to Morrill Land Grant David. He previously lived in the same neighborhood with Act universities CU Olin Library Books CU Olin Rare Collection. and Manuscripts his older brother Edward, a staff physician at Howard’s founded at the end Bailey in forcing house. Freedmen’s Hospital while simultaneously serving as a of the Civil War. The medical officer to the Colored U.S. 10th Calvary “Rough university benefitted from spoils doled-out by New York Riders” commanded by Col. Teddy Roosevelt. Edward Governor Theodore Roosevelt, becoming the nation’s first, sent for David in 1891, paid his tuition, and enrolled him state-funded Agricultural Department in 1874. Founder in Howard Normal School. and Director of the Agriculture Department Liberty Hyde David’s patrilineal grandfather John Payson Williston Bailey sat David for entrance subject exams. David passed of Northampton, Massachusetts was a rebellious all nine and was admitted by Bailey to the university the abolitionist and founding member of the Hampshire fall of 1894.3 Unexpectedly, given the scarcity of coloreds Anti-Slavery Society whose King Street house above a enrolled at white universities during the last decade of the root cellar hid runaway slaves riding the Underground nineteenth century–less than a dozen—David was Bai- Railroad to Ontario. J. P. Williston shouldered the mantle ley’s “second” race student following Jane Datcher class of philanthropy by generously supporting New England of 1890, who was the first female in America to earn a Congregationalists. In defiance of societal norms, John Botany degree. (Datcher forsook botany, instead enter- and wife Cecilia informally adopted David’s father, Frank ing Howard’s Medical School in 1893 where she walked Payson Williston. F. P. Williston subsequently received rounds at Freedmen’s Hospital supervised by David’s a prized appointment as a gauger for the U.S. Treasury brother, Edward.) Department. His carpet bag packed with all his worldly As the sole colored in the Agriculture Department, possessions, Frank Williston relocated to Fayetteville, (continued on page 6) North Carolina where Edward and then David and six siblings were born. David was an 18-year-old, legacy enrollee at the former Wil- liston Free School in Wilmington, North Carolina, built in 1866 by J. P.’s brother and David’s great uncle Samuel Williston, a fabric covered button manufacturer of Easthampton, Massachusetts. By the time David enrolled, New CU Olin Library Books and CU Olin Rare Collections. Manuscripts England Congregationalists had Northampton Williston School Archives renamed the school Gregory Samuel Williston 1898 graduating class. David is in the rear under the arch 5th from left. Vol. XXX, No. 3 Magnolia • Summer-Fall 2017 5 David Williston……(continued from page 5) one of three coloreds enrolled at Cornell surrounded by degree and confronting an America hostile to scientifically nearly 2,400 registrants, David’s four years were unevent- educated non-whites, Williston’s next obstacle was how to ful. While the dean of women allowed both colored make a living during Jim Crow. Unlike fellow Agriculture females to domicile on-campus in Sage Hall the dean graduates, the USDA and its ubiquitous Experimental of men was not so accommodating. David boarded in Extension Service, being monolithically segregated, was Ithaca from baptized coloreds rent paid by his brother. unavailable. Similarly, state and county governments were He slogged-up steep hills unavailable. It is surmised special consideration was given toward campus since to Williston following graduation by his home state with trollies refused to stop for a prestigious appointment at the Agricultural & Mechani- coloreds. Professor Bai- cal College for the Colored Race at Greensboro to teach ley “believed the heart of botany, horticulture, and chemistry where he unceremoni- agriculture is on the farm, ously integrated the faculty. Before and after opening his the heart of horticulture office Williston mirrored the race’s leading intellectual is in the garden, the heart W.E.B. DuBois as an itinerant professor.6 of botany is where the "Bailey's Boys." David standing 4th Williston, whenever he could, offered his professional from left. plant is.”4 He was the first services to Congregationalist- supported colleges siting Photo credited to CU Olin Library Rare president of the Society Books and Manuscripts Collections. student-built buildings, grading flood-prone campuses, for Horticultural Sci- engineering roads which tripled as walkways, and drainage ence, organized the first annual meeting in 1895 of the swales, designing stone entrance gateways, and planting American Dahlia Society, served as the long-time editor of Pinus strobus as wind-breaks.7 Williston practiced an “en- the Cyclopedia of American Horticulture, and was the key gineered” landscape similar to Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. advisor to the longest serving, four-term Secretary of the and engineer Calvert Vaux’s “Greensward Plan” for Central U.S. Department of Agriculture James “Tama Jim” Wilson Park (1858) on Manhattan island or FLO’s mule-dredged (no relation to author). Prior to his federal appointment, Lake Michigan flood-plain for the fairgrounds of the Wilson taught and mentored Carver, Chicago World’s Fair (1893). Meanwhile, Williston honed the first colored to receive a baccalaureate degree in Agri- his drafting skills from the International Correspondence culture in 1894 from the author’s alma mater Iowa State School in Scranton, Pennsylvania. University. Bailey, without fuss, integrated David into The last extant example of Williston’s Prairie Style in the department housed in Morrill Hall. David’s classes spirit with mid-western landscape architect Jens Jenson were identical to his classmates.5 The Horticulture Lazy (1860-1951) is “The Oaks,” Booker T. Washington’s home Boys Club, aka “Bailey’s Boys,” organized by Bailey one (1900) on Tuskegee’s campus re-planted by Williston in year after he admitted David, gathered at his home Friday 1926. Spanning several evenings for dinners followed by lectures. Williston would decades Tuskegee com- forever thereafter announce to anyone within ear-shot that missioned Williston half he was one of the original “Bailey’s Boys.” The photograph a dozen times. During of the club on a field trip is fascinating for including a stints on campus Wil- colored when coloreds at predominately white universi- liston forged a life-long ties were scarce and their inclusion in mixed-race, group friendship with George Library of Congress photographs even scarcer. The black and white photograph Washington Carver. Booker T. Washington's home, communicates how seamlessly l’café au lait complexion, Carver would cook "The Oaks." like-attired David blended-in indistinguishable from other Saturday evening dinners club members. The sensory currency paid toward the at his modest one-room home. After dinner conversations photographer seems congenial. After approval of his senior between the race’s first and second conferees of an Agri- paper “Atmospheric Drain- culture degree—the nation’s greatest agriculture scientist age,” David was conferred and one of the nation’s most accomplished landscape a B. S. in Agriculture in architects—most assuredly were legendary. Howard’s first, June 1898, the second of Negro president Mordeacai Johnson during his Charter his race so honored. It is, Day speech on March 2, 1946, mentioned a Willistonia however, unlikely David pyracantha as would a friend or client or both.8 marched in the com- A&M College Botany Class (1898). First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt’s mencement processional. Photo credited to NCA&T Bluford Library cousin, and the Negroes greatest friend was influential in Armed with a first-rate Archives Catalog. both of Williston’s most significant projects. When FDR’s

6 Magnolia • Summer-Fall 2017 Vol. XXX, No. 3 brain-trust agreed in 1935 to green-light the first, federally 1865-1945, Routledge, (2004), is a licensed landscape financed, public housing Langston Terrace several miles architect and Associate Professor in the College of east of the U.S. Capitol; Eleanor Roosevelt, an annual Engineering and Architecture at Howard University. This visitor to Howard, urged that Howard architecture profes- paper was presented at the Restoring Southern Gardens sor Hilyard Robinson (1899-1986) receive the commis- & Landscapes conference at the Old Salem Gardens and sion.9 And who happened to be Robinson’s most frequent Museums, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, September collaborator–David Wil- 23, 2017. liston. Williston graded the Endnotes seventeen-acre site, which 1 The author, who is African American, uses the words “Negro” and slopes down to the Anacos- “colored” to be historically in context. tian Native American River 2 James Atwood to Ezra Cornell, 2 July 1868, Cornell University Olin wetlands, oriented mid-rise Library of Congress Library, Division of Rare Books and Manuscripts, Ezra Cornell Pa- pers, Box 30/16. buildings containing over Langston Terrace rendering by Williston. 3 David passed entrance exams in English, Geography, Physiology, 200 dwelling units facing a American History, Arithmetic, Plane Geometry, Elementary Algebra commons, planted Acer saccharum along boundary streets, and Plane Trigonometry. designed a forced-gravity storm sewer system (which still 4 Andrew Rodgers, Liberty Hyde Bailey, A Story of American Plant Sci- ences, N.Y.: Hafner Publishing, 1965, p. 112. flows), terraced eight low-rise buildings to elevate them 5 David’s First Year classes were: French, English, Chemistry, Zoology, out of the floodplain, and designed a playground inhab- Botany, Physics, Horticulture, Etymology and Dairy. ited by sculpted sandstone animals. 6 Williston was Professor of Agriculture at Agriculture & Mechanical In 1939, FDR ordered the War Department’s Army College for the Colored Race, Greensboro, NC 1898-1900; Lincoln Institute, Jefferson City, MO 1901-02, Fisk University, Nashville, TN Air Corps to train Negroes to test their mental acuity 1907-09 (overlapping with DuBois), Tennessee Agricultural & Indus- and pilot ability. FLOTUS trial State College, Nashville 1930-31 and Lane College, Jackson, TN again intervened insisting 1945-46. Robinson be sole-sourced 7 Campuses touched by Williston include: Atlanta University 1926, Howard University 1939, Catholic University of America 1940, Lane the RFP for a training camp College 1945, Tuskegee Institute 1947; Alcorn Agriculture & Me- and airfield outside Tuskegee. chanical College 1950, Tennessee Agriculture & Industrial State Col- The Corps’ obstructionism lege 1954 and Philander Smith College 1958. manifests itself in the unreal- 8 No such red berry cultivar is listed in Standardized Plant Names. Library of Congress Parenthetically an application to the USDA from a Negro would not istic one-week deadline they Tuskegee Airmen. have been accepted. gave Robinson to submit a 9 In 1987, as Director of Public Housing for the District of Columbia, fee proposal. Robinson asked fraternity brother Charles the author nominated Langston Terrace Dwellings to the National “Chief” Anderson the first, Negro commercial licensed pi- Register of Historic Places the first and to date only public housing project on the Register. lot to fly him over the 1,700-acre site. What Robinson ob- 10 Louis Harlan, The Wizard of Tuskegee, NY: Oxford, 1986, n.p. served was a rutted flood-plain that seemingly disappeared over the horizon with thousands of foot-hills shoe-laced BIBLIOGRAPHY with creeks. And who was the most experienced at dewa- Frank Conant, God’s Stewards, Samuel and Emily Williston, Easthampton, tering sites than the Cornelian whose terminal paper was MA: Williston Northampton School, 1991. “Atmospheric Drainage”? Williston prepared rough-and- Carol Kammen, Part and Apart, The Black Experience at Cornell, 1865-1945, fine grading blue-prints, sited hangars, barracks, and con- Ithaca: Cornell University Olin Library, 2009. trol tower and engineered 4-5,000lf Dreck Spurlock Wilson, ed., Biographical Dictionary of African American Ar- asphalt runways. Robinson & Wil- chitects, 1865-1945, “David Williston,” NY: Routledge, 2004. liston got the 99th Pursuit Squadron aka “Tuskegee Airmen” airborne in record-time escorting all-white pi- lots flying B-24 bombers in soirees over Western Europe never losing a B-24 to the Luftwaffe. Library of Congress Airfield. Oft-quoted Booker T. Washington offered “the world honors the sticker never the quitter.”10 To David Williston a well-deserved honor as the first Negro landscape architect. Photo by Lee Bynum Schwall. Lee Bynum by Photo The author, Dreck Wilson, (center front row) surrounded by [Dreck Spurlock Wilson, ASLA, NOMA, editor of landscape architecture students from North Carolina Agricultural African American Architects A Biographical Dictionary &Technical State University who attended his lecture. Vol. XXX, No. 3 Magnolia • Summer-Fall 2017 7 John Lee Pratt’s Chatham Manor Judith B. Tankard, Boston, Massachusetts (also shown in the album) and interested in historic preservation. (Miller later spearheaded the restoration Frances Benjamin Johnston’s iconic photographs of Shipman’s garden at Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens of Chatham Manor in 1927 (featured in Gardens for a in Ohio.) When Miller learned I was working on a new Beautiful America by Sam Watters) capture a moment edition of my book on Ellen Shipman, he generously gave when the famously lush gardens dazzled with color. It me the album. Its final home is the Cherokee Garden must have been a source of pride for Ellen Shipman, who Library at the Atlanta History Center. A companion designed the gardens in 1921 for Col. Daniel Devore and album of the Devore-era gardens is at the College of his wife, Helen. Fastidious about including maintenance William and Mary Special Collections. notes on her detailed planting plans, Shipman was Rumor has it that John Lee Pratt was not a great fan of renowned for helping her clients keep their gardens Shipman’s labor-intensive gardens. He felt that the endless looking perfect and often helped them find trained stream of garden visitors and curiosity-seekers detracted gardeners. Little is known, however, about the fate of from his privacy, especially after 1938, when the gardens most of Shipman’s gardens as they age, but fortunately for were featured on the Garden Club of Virginia’s Historic Chatham, we have some answers. A family photo album Garden Week tour. As early as 1931, he contacted the belonging to the subsequent owner provides a unique prominent landscape architect Charles Freeman Gillette chapter in the life cycle of a Shipman garden. In 1931, John Lee Pratt (1879-1975) and his wife, Lillian Thomas Pratt (1876- 1947), then in their mid-fifties, purchased historic Chatham Manor in Fredericksburg, Virginia, as a retirement home along with a nearby working farm. John Lee Pratt, a former vice-president of General Motors Corporation and a philanthropist, was one of America’s wealthiest men. The Pratts assembled over 250 photographs of the house, gardens, and grounds in all seasons as well as family outings, such as yachting expeditions along the Rappahannock. Pratt’s prize-winning cattle and racehorses Smith. Judson by Photo as well as generations of family dogs are also Lillian Pratt and artist, 1940. featured. Even though the Pratts had no children, the album is filled with snapshots of happy children playing in Shipman’s gardens, enjoying the lily pond, and romping in the lush flower borders. Other family members (and later nurses) dutifully pose throughout the gardens. Winter scenes of Chatham show record snowfalls covering mounds of boxwood, the parterres, and the garden ornaments. The photographs date from 1931 until 1947, the year of Lillian Pratt’s death. At some point the album was given to Anne Barber Bruin (1886-1971), the Pratts’ long-time housekeeper, who brought it with her when she retired to Hagerstown, Maryland. In the 1970s it was given to the architectural historian John Franklin

Miller, who was then affiliated with Smith. Judson by Photo Hampton National Historic Site in Towson Chatham Manor, Fredericksburg, Virginia, 1937. 8 Magnolia • Summer-Fall 2017 Vol. XXX, No. 3 (1886-1969) for planting plans and Christopher M. Beagan and H. role in the rehabilitation of one of for the parterre garden featuring Eliot Foulds of the Olmsted Center Ellen Shipman’s most important yellow and blue flowers, but nothing for Landscape Preservation, National commissions. may have come of it. In 1943, he Park Service, Boston, for scanning contacted Gillette again, stating that the photographs and for sharing A revised edition of landscape historian his gardener had left to go into war a draft of the Cultural Landscape Judith B. Tankard’s 1998 classic, Ellen service and there was no one with Report for Chatham, a magnum Shipman and the American Garden, any knowledge of managing the opus that will play an essential is forthcoming in February 2018. greenhouses (shown in the album) or trimming the hedges. After Lillian Pratt’s death, Gillette simplified the gardens in 1954, calling for the complete removal of Shipman’s famous parterres and other labor- intensive beds along the axial walk as well as replacement of the curvilinear stepping stone paths (shown in the album) with flat, rectilinear stepping stone paths. Twenty-one years later, Pratt bequeathed Chatham Manor and its drastically changed grounds to the National Park Service, now part of the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. Plans are currently underway to reinterpret the gardens at Chatham Manor with the goal of a restoration to an earlier era.

• • • Smith. Judson by Photo

Thanks to John Franklin Miller Smith. Judson by Photo Children playing in lily pond in front of for presenting me with the album Lillian Pratt and artist, 1940. summerhouse, 1930s. Photo by Judson Smith. Judson by Photo Smith. Judson by Photo Smith. Judson by Photo Chatham in spring, 1938. Pergola with iris, 1936. Walled garden in winter, 1939. Vol. XXX, No. 3 Magnolia • Summer-Fall 2017 9 Book Review The Rose Rustlers, by Greg Grant and William C. Welch fencerows, through cemeteries, and into yards, saving and | Texas A&M University Press | Softcover flexbound | 248 bringing back alive these special roses. pages, 1 B&W, 216 color photos | ISBN- 978-1-62349- Dr. Bill Welch and his friend and colleague Greg 544-2 | List price $30 Grant tell how they each came to be expert rosarians, share their tales of rustling old garden roses, and list their These early rustlers mined old favorites. We meet other dedicated rosarians such as Pam cemeteries where hardy roses were Puryear, to whom the book is dedicated. Rules of rose planted long ago to honor loved rustling are set out since the process continues to this day. ones who once adored their flowers. Once again the duo of Welch and Grant give us a They also traipsed politely into the fascinating and educational book that belongs in every small-town yards of green-thumbed southern gardener’s library. Beautifully illustrated with gardeners who generously shared over two hundred color photographs, this book will easily cuttings from plants that were often pack along and serve as a reference to those who, like Bill passed down from their mothers and Greg, hope to seek out and save lost roses across the and grandmothers. South. For those who want a good armchair read, nothing G. Michael Shoup could be as warmly and personally written. We also get a peek into their own home gardens over the years, with In the last quarter of the twentieth century, sharp- companion plants highlighting the heirloom roses they eyed rosarians across America picked out lost roses in propagated from cuttings gathered and nurtured. At the the landscape and sought to save them from obscurity. end of the book is a list of Earth-Kind roses that are pest- Nowhere was this more organized or more colorfully active tolerant and outstanding in the landscape plus a list of than across Texas, where a small group dubbed themselves nine Rose Rustlers with their favorite roses. Retail sources the Texas Rose Rustlers. are given for those of us who prefer to have our roses Two leaders of that group, both longtime active shipped to us at home. SGHS members, have set down a personal recounting of those days with their companions as they roamed along Susan Haltom, Jackson, Mississippi State Ambassadors Program Expanding opportuni- trip to Georgia, along with others, to receive a private tour ties for fellowship and edu- given by then-director Tim Brown of Oak Hill at Berry cational outreach has been College, Martha Berry’s Cridland designed landscape and a focus of the SGHS board gardens. (See article on Oak Hill in this issue.) A varia- and long-range planning tion on the theme was the engaging summertime program committee. To that end the held at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley hosted State Ambassadors Program by Virginia State Ambassadors Perry Mathewes and Jane launched in 2017. Consist- White. Alabama members of the SGHS were invited this ing of a representative or Ced Dolder and Barbara Atkins fall, along with surrounding states, to a private luncheon ambassador in each mem- in the garden of SGHS member Cathy Adams, followed ber state, the ambassador’s role is to plan one event a year by a visit to the Birmingham Botanical Garden. Members in their state or region that fits our educational mission from both Mississippi and Alabama attended the event. and provides an opportunity to meet with members out- Looking ahead to May 9, 2018, Georgia and Florida side of the annual meeting. The function can be as simple State Ambassadors are partnering for an event at Pebble as providing a gathering spot for members to attend an Hill Plantation in Thomasville, Georgia. Once again event already being held in the region, such as a lecture, SGHS will be supporting The Garden Club of Georgia’s garden tour, or other related activity. annual Historic Landscape Preservation fundraiser by Four events occurred in 2017. The first, organized by featuring past SGHS President Staci Catron and her co- State Ambassador Randy Harelson, took place in Point author Mary Ann Eaddy launching their new book Seeking Coupee Parish, Louisiana in conjunction with the Bartram Eden: A Collection of Georgia’s Historic Gardens, (Univer- Trail Conference held in Baton Rouge. The second Am- sity of Georgia Press, April 2018). The book is an update bassadors program took place in Georgia near the Alabama and expansion to the early twentieth-century publication and Tennessee borders. Because of its location, the Georgia Garden History of Georgia 1733-1933. For registration state Ambassadors, Lee Dunn and Ced Dolder, included information, contact Susan Bennett at (478) 476-8228; members in all three states in their invitation to an event [email protected], or SGHS board member in Rome, Georgia. Several Alabama members made the Lee Dunn, [email protected].

10 Magnolia • Summer-Fall 2017 Vol. XXX, No. 3 Southern Garden History Society Fiscal Year 2016-2017 Benefactors, Patrons, Sustainers, and Donors

The Southern Garden Jane B. and Kenneth S. Dr. Tom Digges & Ms. Cecile Wardlaw History Society recognizes White Lana Ingram Ms. Anna Wasden those members who have Ms. Marjorie L. White Ms. Carol Innes Ms. Charlotte P. Watkins joined at the Benefactor, Pa- Mr. Jim Inscoe, President Dr. & Mrs. William C. tron, Sustainer, and Donor Sustainers Ms. Julie G. Jenkins Welch levels during the fiscal year Marcia and Lem Adams III Sue P. John Mr. John B. Welch 2016-2017. Mr. Jeff Allen Ms. Celia A. Jones Mrs. Eugenia N. White Mr. Wayne R. Amos Ms. Susan B. Keeton Mr. and Mrs. Jon Wickwire Benefactors Ms. Sally Barnett Mr. & Mrs. Andrew D. Ms. Camilla Wilcox and Dr. & Mrs. William Barrick Mr. and Mrs. Amos T. Kohr Dr. Sidney C. Teague II Mr. R. Jerry Coates & Dr. Beason Mrs. Ione Coker Lee Mr. and Mrs. Sidney H. Courtney M. Carter Ms. Adelaida Bennett Mr. Benjamin Lenhardt Jr. Willams Mrs. Lee C. Dunn Dr. & Mrs. Thomas Peter Jeff and Karen Lewis Mr. and Mrs. A.C. Wilson, Mr. and Mrs. Frank E. Bennett Mr. Gary R. Libby Jr. Foster, Jr. Ms. Elaine H. Bolton Ms. Carolyn Lindsay Mr. and Mrs. John D. Dr. and Mrs. James Haltom Ms. Ethel Boykin Ms. Diane Lowe Wood Hills & Dales Estate Debbie and Tom Brewer Ms. Nicky Maddams Mrs. Abbie S. Wood Dr. and Mrs. David R. Sally Guy Brown Ms. Catherine P. Madden & Melanie Kleinpeter Mr. and Mrs. James T. Ms. Patricia Marquardt Donors Hubbs Buckley Dr. William M. Massie Ms. Ann Calhoun Mr. and Mrs. Robert Lee Mr. & Mrs. William S. Bur- Mr. Perry Mathewes Fayette County Farm James II dell, Jr. Drs. Arthur and Elizabeth Bureau Evelyn and Michael Jefcoat Dr. Frances Carter Mazyck Dr. and Mrs. David R. Mr. and Mrs. James Klin- Ms. Alleen Cater Mr. & Mrs. John S. Mc- & Melanie Kleinpeter gler Ms. Staci Catron Intyre, Jr. Hubbs Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin B. and Coates Clark Ms. Carter Morris Mr. and Mrs. Robert Lee Page, Jr. Mrs. Linda L. Consolvo Mr. J. Dean Norton James II Mrs. Terry S. Tosh Peggy Cornett & Chris Mrs. Selma Owens Evelyn and Michael Jefcoat Mrs. Robin G. Weisner Morash Mr. & Mrs. Charles J. Peril- Mr. and Mrs. Joseph H. Mr. Zachary Westall Ms. Kimberlee Cory loux, Jr. McGee Mr. John W. Cullum Mr. and Mrs. William R. Patrons Ms. Leigh Eley Pickens Lifetime Members Margaret Bok, MD Mrs. Mollie C. Fair Ms. Mary F. Pietan (this category of member- Mr. and Mrs. Richard Byrd Ms. Catherine Fleming Mr. and Mrs. Harley D. ship is no longer offered) Mr. Paul Callaway Ms. Lucy Fugate Ponder Dr. & Mrs. James T. Coy Ms. Deborah J. Getter Mr. and Mrs. Charles L. Jeff and Leabeth Abt Mrs. Mary Hart Darden Ms. Caroline M. Gilham Reed, Jr. Mr. Fred Bartenstein Mr. and Mrs. David B. Mr. & Mrs. Richard D. Ms. Mollie Ridout Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Dargan Epstein Gore Paula and Mike Rushing Mr. Greg Grant Mr. Richard Gibbs and Mr. Jackie Grant Ms. Marianne Salas Mrs. Louise S. Gunn Randolph Harelson Mr. & Mrs. William G. Mr. Paul Davis Saylors Ms. Judith M. Hanes Paula P. James Gray Ms. Judith Sear Mrs. Nancy F. Haywood Mrs. Neill P. Jeffrey, Jr. William and Gail Griffin Mr. and Mrs. Michael L. Ms. Barbara B. Manard Barbara and Richard Powell Ms. Carol Grove Steen Mrs. E. D. Manard Dr. and Mrs. Robert W. Mary Beth Hagood Da Gin Alston Stewart Mr. and Mrs. Joseph H. Rives Ms. Barbara Hall Ms. Brooke Johnson Suiter McGee Mr. Robert Schofield III Mr. and Mrs. Wayne Hays Ms. Judith B. Tankard Miss Lucy A. McGinnis Mr. and Mrs. Douglas St. Mrs. Nathan Hendricks III Milton & Twila Tate Ms. Deen D. Sanders Clair Mr. Robert Hicks Mr. & Mrs. John R. Thelin Dr. and Mrs. F. W. Stro- Ms. Winifred Stakely Mr. and Mrs. Thomas A. Lee Threadgill meyer Mr. John Sykes & Mr. John Hill Ms. Suzanne L. Turner Ms. Linda Munroe Wil- Carpenter Mrs. Robert K. Huffman Ms. Katherine F. Van Allen liams Mr. Charles A. Hunnicutt Kathlyn and Derek Wade

Vol. XXX, No. 3 Magnolia • Summer-Fall 2017 11 Southern Garden History Society Presort First Class P.O. Box 15752 U.S. Postage Winston-Salem, NC 27113 PAID Waynesboro, VA Permit 115

Magnolia grandiflora reproduced courtesy of Rare Book Div., Special Collections Dept., UVA Library.

Awards and Scholarships Annual Membership Dues The Flora Ann Bynum Award is the highest award bestowed by the The society’s membership year is from August 1—July 31. Southern Garden History Society. It is not awarded annually, but only Membership categories: occasionally to recipients who have rendered outstanding service to the society. Nominations may be made at any time by any member. The Benefactor $500 and above* award will usually be presented at the annual meeting. Patron $250 Sustainer $125 The title Honorary Director (Board of Directors) may be bestowed Institution or Business $100 on individuals who have rendered exceptional service and made Joint $60 significant contributions to the society. Nominations for Honorary (two individuals living Director are made to the President by current Board members and are in the same household) approved by the Board of Directors. Individual $40 The Certificate of Merit is presented to a member or non-member, Student $15 whose work has advanced the mission and goals of the society. Awarding of certificates will be approved by the Board of Directors and will usually *Contact the membership coordinator if you would like to pay be announced at the annual meeting. more than $500 via credit card. Society Scholarships assist students in attending the society’s annual meeting and are awarded to bona fide students enrolled in college and For more membership information, contact: university majors relevant to the mission and goals of the society. The Virginia Hart, SGHS Administrator scholarship provides a waiver of registration fees plus $500 to assist with Post Office Box 15752 travel and lodging. Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27113 Phone (336) 770-6723 Details, requirements, and directions for submitting applications are Email: [email protected] posted on the SGHS website: www.southerngardenhistory.org. For those without internet access, a copy of this document can be mailed. Contact Memberships can now be made electronically on our website! Virginia Hart, SGHS Administrator. www.southerngardenhistory.org

Deadline for submitting articles for the next issue of Magnolia is December 31, 2017.

Officers Editor: Editor Emeritus: Associate Editor: Book Review Editor: President: Susan Haltom, Ridgeland, MS Peggy Cornett Kenneth M. McFarland Staci Catron Davyd Foard Hood Vice-President: John Sykes, Baton Monticello, P.O.B. 316 814 Marye Street Cherokeee Garden Library, AHC Isinglass Rouge, LA Charlottesville, VA 22902 Fredericksburg, VA 22401 130 W. Paces Ferry Rd., NW 6907 Old Shelby Rd. Secretary: Mollie Ridout, Annapolis, MD (434) 984-9816 (540) 760-9337 Atlanta, GA 30305 Vale, NC 28168 Treasurer: Gail Griffin, Bethesda, MD Cell (434) 465-5297 [email protected] (404) 814-4046 (704) 462-1847 [email protected] [email protected]

Board of Directors Honorary Board Members Jeffry Abt, Nacogdoches, TX J. Randolph Harelson, New Roads, LA A. Jefferson Lewis, III, Athens, GA Beate Ankjaer-Jensen, Fredericksburg, VA Perry Mathewes, Purcellville, VA Kenneth M. McFarland , Fredericksburg, VA Wayne Amos, Athens, GA Kathleen Perilloux, Baton Rouge, LA Ben Page, Nashville, TN William E. Barrick, Mobile, AL Andrea Sprott, Charlotte, NC Mary Anne Pickens, Columbus, TX Gordon Chappell, Williamsburg, VA Justin Stelter, Franklin, TN Ced Dolder, Atlanta, GA Immediate Past President: Jane Campbell Symmes, Madison, GA Lee C. Dunn, Atlanta, GA Carleton B. Wood, LaGrange, GA William C. Welch, College Station, TX